Thursday, December 11, 2008

Freddie's Gone crazy

When I was growing up, I always heard my aged next neighbour fretting. Often times when I peered through the rusty mesh we had for fencing, I was totally shock to learn that she spoke to no one. My dad is a smart fella and he often told me not to laugh because the woman had not lost her senses as I had thought. In fact, he said her rantings were directly linked to the pressures of life. He then said the only way to know if someone has lost their bearings is is they begin to answer themselves. Pay attention to the highlighted words in Freddie's piece today.

Here is Freddie's ramblings in the KN: If only people would get inside the soul and mind of an aggrieved person they would understand what hurt is. It doesn’t seem like the average person throughout the centuries has done that and wants to do that. Had that been so, there would have been no human rights violations. And Nietzsche would never have proclaimed that God and Marx are dead. Maybe we would have had Marx’s classless society.

Donald Ramotar’s daughter once said to me that her father fought for Guyana’s right to have democracy. I didn’t disagree with her but I made the point that I know of so many others who did and what has become of them? What do you tell the children of a man who has worked for thirty-five years cleaning the city’s faeces and was dismissed on the accusation of one person? What played out there?

Are we back to the Burnham days when ethnicity and party card determine whether you survive in the land of your birth? Let me answer my own question. Yes we are back to those days. The cultural and religious derivatives of the names and texture of hair of our new rulers have changed. But the discrimination, party domination and abuse of power remain identical.